Now was the hard part — out of the 105 beers available, which 13 should I try with my tokens? Perusing the 70-page full-color guide — or the excellent online app — I started making some informed choices.

I quickly found out that it is one thing to read about a beer, but quite another thing altogether to actually taste it. Some which seemed wonderful on paper were quickly categorized as “not so good” after the first sip.

After my thirteenth sample I bought five more tokens. With one I tasted my fourteenth beer, then I finished off the Festival with a full glass of my favorite — apparently a one-off beer called Kölschtastic by Portland’s Gigantic Brewing.

The Festival wasn’t a very good place for photography, but I did manage to get some decent shots, both from ground level and from the nearby Morrison Bridge. Because I was basically just trying to document what I saw, most of the photos were on the boring side. Therefore I decided to spice some of them up by processing them as color splash images.

In this album you can view the best 14 pictures from the day’s outing. Hmmmm ... 14 beer samples, and 14 photos — that’s an interesting correlation!